Avid App For iPad:
Anyone familiar with non linear editing (NLE) for video on Apple Macs and PC’s will have probably heard of AVID, and in my opinion a f**** nightmare to use and totally defunct when you have equally capable (for most instances) options such as Adobe’s Premiere Pro which has grown over the years to be very capable and nice to use and Apple’s Final Cut Pro (FCP) which has stayed rather stale until very recently but still packs a punch and works pretty well.
Having said all this I will not judge this application based on the fact that I dislike AVID on PC’s with a passion and would advise any sane member of the human race to steer clear.
So let us begin:
AVID App review:
With the iPad showing its versatility and strength in the music production department which I covered last week with the Akai MPC Fly review, I am pleasantly surprised to see this new release of the video editing AVID application for the device.
And at £2.99/$4.99 it is cheap enough to trial for 30 days (with the full app costing a couple more pounds after this period £4.99/$7.99).
But, does the app need you to already own the daddy AVID on your desktop to make any use of it, or can you use this application like a cut down version much like iMovies is intended?
Well the answer is, it is up to you. But you do not need the fully blown Avid software for a desktop PC at all to use this iPad application.
With the application working with video, audio and photos, it does mean you can edit more than just some crappy video footage on your iPad and are able to bring in a bit more to spice things up.
Effects and transitions:
As you would expect from an application that has iMovie to compete with, it includes some basic effects and transitions to add a touch of your own style to the video editing process, even though you will see that less is more in this art form as you gain more skills and confidence…;)
But with Photobucket stating that they have seen Photo Sharing Trends with mobile uploads of content such as photo and video to their site on the increase, it is perhaps likely that we will see many more videos been shot with smartphones and tablets and edited on the same devices and released pretty much without ever leaving this framework of technology, WOW.
Exporting options:
With options to upload and export to Facebook and Youtube, this will seriously add another weapon in the armory of the mobile journalist or person who simply wants to have some fun, your movie will also be included in the devices camera roll for exporting and bringing back into a real AVID.
I think this application would be best served in making more people aware of AVID and then perhaps bringing out a decent version of the desktop option for PC and Mac’s that could compete with Adobe Premiere and Apple’s FCP in terms of usability and the ability to manage work-spaces on the desktop more effectively which is an area that AVID sorely missed out on in the past, and saw many potential converts (myself included) steer well clear once we had tested other options that worked easier and pretty much did everything we wanted and perhaps more.
Talking of the shift in user behavior in how we now create video, Avid VP Tanguy Leborgne stets:
“We’ve seen a shift in how creation is happening, and it’s really happening on almost any device, we think the tablet is more than just a consumer device; more and more people are creating on it.”
I still find it really strange that AVID Technology does not bring out a version of the Avid studio software for Mac users when most creatives I know use Macs to work on, such is the level of fear most people who need their PC to work effectively daily have for windows based operating systems, yet they bring out an Apple iPad application that works on the PC version of the software.
Odd…but all in all I rather like the look of this application and will be looking forward to giving it a trial soon.
*This app works on both iPad and iPad2’s.
Anthony Munns